Friday, May 10, 2013

Fabric trimmed tea towels (and a dishcloth or two!)



I'm still trying to post links, tutorials, etc. for the recent crafts I've made.  Today I want to share the links for the fabric trimmed tea towels (or dish towels, if you prefer that term) that I've been sewing.  I absolutely love Sew4Home.  They have the best and most professional sewing tutorials I've seen, plus they feature projects I can actually make even with my less-than-great sewing machine.  I've made the fabric trimmed tea towels from a couple different tutorials, but this one: Fancy Border Tea Towels is my out-and-out favorite.  It is SO easy yet comes out so cute.
Love the fruit print on this one!
I had so much fun making that one, I made a couple more.

Same towel as above, just folded

Then I made one for myself!  I found that one of the flour sack towels in my stash had a little stain on it.

I couldn't use a stained towel as a gift item, of course.  But I can use it in my own kitchen.  I love this print!

A fall-themed set I made for a giveaway
And I have also made these:  Triple Border Dish Towels in the past.  They are fun and simple too, but the Fancy Border ones are definitely my favorite.

Sunflowers
With a Coke® theme
Brown and pink
Often when I give a gift of dish towels, I also like to include a crocheted dishcloth.
A gift for a homeschooling mom
 Here is one I have made many times:  seed stitch dishcloth.
 
(Incidentally, the pattern doesn't call for an edging, but I  add one by simply single crocheting around all four edges.)

This time, I only had 2 dishcloths left in my stash, so the I chose the green one on the right to go with the dish towel I had made for my granddaughter:
 
 This is made using another favorite dishcloth pattern.  I've made loads of these as well, and they are so pretty.

Now it's time to crochet a few more, and I have a couple of new dishcloth patterns I want to try as well.

So there you have it!  Why not whip up a few of these easy items for your own gift stash?

4 comments:

  1. Dish cloths are exactly why I want to learn to crochet. My daughter is learning to sew and the towels look like a great project to aim for! Have a wonderful Mother's Day, Mrs. T!

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  2. Thanks, Mrs. Smith! Yes, the towels are a great project, especially the simpler "fancy trimmed" ones. Sew4Home would be a fun site for you and your daughter to visit together as she learns to sew. They have projects for all skill levels and all sorts of inspiration.

    Hope your Mother's Day was wonderful, too!

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  3. I love those dish towels! Where do you find your towels to embellish? I also love love love crocheted & knitted dish cloths. They're the only ones I use! Beautiful work you've done, Mrs. T! My sister would really love the Coke-themed ones.

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  4. Susan, thanks so much for the sweet comments! I do love making things although I have little free time and am not highly skilled. Projects like this are relatively quick and can be fit into the snippets of time I have.

    I find most of my towels at Walmart. The flour sack towels come in packs of five, I believe. But they are huge ... much larger than I would use as a dish towel. So I cut them in half vertically and then just hem the cut side to match the others.

    I have also, in the past, found some very nice waffle weave towels and bistro towels on clearance at Walmart, and have used those to embellish as well. Sometimes you can find nice towels at the dollar store, too.

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